Almost ever after
by just another harlequin
Summary: In which George and Lydia discuss Darcy's future spawn, grandmother material and children of their own. It isn't perfect, but it's close enough. Mentions of DarcyLizzy


_"Love relies on very little. The idea alone can cause such absurdity."  
-_**Anon**

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Almost ever after

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They'd been lying on the sofa, perfectly fine for the past ten minutes.

They had just gotten back from one of the many parties going on around the college town; not drunk, but decidedly exhausted from all the dancing and socializing, well at least George was. On any other occasion, Lydia would've been leaning over him, smirking and teasing, calling him a 'total bore' lacking in stamina until he got off his butt and proved to her (for several hours) that he was far from it.

But in the wee hours of Thursday morning, his twenty year old girlfriend was content to snuggle up to him on the sofa as they both lay prone, fully clothed and happy to just lay together doing nothing. The silence in their apartment was a nice change from the thumping music and chatter of voices…

"What do you think of children George?"

He sighed. That didn't last long.

"They're annoying."

"Oh come on," Lydia began with a roll of her eyes, turning over on her back to rest her chin on his chest, her amber eyes staring at him imploringly through the darkness. "Is that all? Two words sum up your _entire_ opinion of them?"

"What do you want from me, a thesis? Go ask Darcy, I'm sure he'll be glad to indulge you."

Of course he would, his step-brother had a freaking PhD in medicine; ask him anything about the human anatomy and the joys of human existence and he'd gladly tell you. But George was pretty sure that Darcy wouldn't even think to talk to anyone at length about _his_ future spawnto anyone that wasn't Liz.

Lydia snickered. "Can you imagine Will's kids?"

"They'll all have large sticks up their asses." He claimed, patting her head.

"Please, have we not already seen the wonders Liz has done for him? I think their kids will be adorable." She giggled quietly – unsurprisingly since Lydia was convinced at some point that Will Darcy had the persona of Chuck Bass considering his wealth and dark looks, and when she'd actually seen her sister and him together, she was convinced Darcy was _way _better. "They'll have the most perfect hair ever if they take after him, but I'm pretty sure if they get Liz's hair they'll go for a military buzz cut."

He chuckled. George had seen Liz's hair before she'd gotten it trimmed – if his memory was right, she had fought it with scissors and lost horribly. She ended up wearing hats and beanies throughout the year until the hair at the back of her head had grown back completely.

"Having Darcy's hair isn't going to make up for his personality defects."

"Yeah, but they'll have Liz's eyes – the Bennet eyes are a killer, personality defects be damned." She turned to rest her chin on his chest and bat her lashes up at him.

George couldn't argue – the Bennet eyes were the reason he and his step-brother had gotten caught in such a mess. Once Darcy and he had claimed the titles of Hertfordshire's biggest bachelors – he had accepted it with relish while Darcy had not, and now here they were: Darcy almost married and him in a long term relationship and living with a girl. Bingley could suck it. Neither he, nor his step-brother was allergic to commitment.

"Oh, and what about the intelligence?"

"They're both super smart – I bet their kid will find the cure to cancer one day."

They were silent for awhile, but George could tell that she was still thinking about her future nieces and nephews. He shook his head in amusement and asked, "So whose personality will they have?"

"A mixture of them both I suppose, they're so different from each other and yet so the same." Lydia closed her eyes, a gentle smile on her lips. She was truly happy that her older sister had found happiness – at heart Lydia the party girl believed in the cliché: happily ever after, prince charming, white knights, a horse drawn carriage, a perfect wedding day –

"They'll probably always be on time and irritate people with their formalness," he joked.

She shrugged and opened her eyes, the spell broken. "Probably – hey my kid will probably be completely uncontrollable and difficult, drinking and partying and who knows what else. Probably go through a teen pregnancy with the way I was, hopefully she won't have to go through a miscarriage."

It was sudden and quiet, but he felt more than saw her sharp intake of breath. "Is there a reason you're thinking about Darcy's future spawn?" It was a pathetic attempt to distract her, but it worked.

"I don't know, I was just asking what you thought of kids."

"And I told you: Irritating."

"George," Lydia whined, widening her eyes, her moment of melancholy passed.

He watched her rise and fall slightly from her position on his chest as he exhaled loudly. "What do you want to know about them?"

"What do you think of them," she repeated and George rolled his eyes.

"Loaded question there darling, want to try and be more specific?"

She huffed, her lips curling into a pout. "Just your thoughts on them, do you think it would be nice to have them?"

"What, I'm not enough for you?"

Thumping him, she scowled and made a move to get off him before he covered her hands with one of his own, only allowing her to straddle him. When George didn't let go, she whined, "I'm being serious!"

"So am I!" He was sitting up now, his one hand still holding both of hers while his other hand stroked her back. "Look if you get lonely in between my jobs out of town I can get you a cat or something, no wait, dogs. You like dogs better right? And they can watch the house while we're not here and keep you safe when I'm not here. See, that works fine."

"George, do you or do you not like children?"

His visage tightened. "You're seriously going to ask me that after what happened to Georgiana?"

"You were twelve George; no one blames you for what happened to Gia, not Gia herself and not even Darcy. And you, me and everyone in the country knows how far he's willing to go for his baby sister," she pointed out, but managed to pull her hands away from him to wrap around his torso in a hug. "Yes, she was almost killed by that speeding car under your watch, but she certainly isn't dead now, she's perfectly fine. If you want, we can call her right now and she can tell you herself."

A slight smile tugged at his lips before he brushed them against her sable hair. "It's three a.m. she would kill me. Besides, she may be alive but _perfectly fine _is stretching it, don't you think?"

"So she's in a wheelchair," Lydia declared with a shrug as she pulled away from him to look him in the eye. "She's dealt with it and she's been rehabilitated. George, come on, its' been fourteen years and you aren't a stupid kid anymore."

"Well even if I'm not a stupid kid anymore, your parents don't like me."

She gave him an incredulous look. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well having your whore of a mother marry the closest thing to money isn't exactly a model for a good grandmother don't you think?"

"And my mother is?"

"She's a bit old fashioned, but at least she won't encourage our kid to take up smokes and use their good looks to get more male attention for herself now that Pops died."

"Oh, so our kid's going to have good looks?"

"If Darcy's kids are going to be adorable ours will be the upgrade." He snorted. "Anyway just look at us, like hell we'll produce ugly children. My ass. When I reproduce, my kid's going to be a beast."

"So you do want kids?"

"We take precautions, but we can't plan for everything."

To this she was silent, and for a moment he was grateful. Up until he realized why the topic might have been brought up in the first place:

"Are you pregnant?"

"No."

"Lydia."

"I'm not."

Silence.

"Then why are you asking what I think of children for?"

"I'm just curious." She rose then, smoothing out the creases in the slinky black dress he always liked taking off of her. "I'm going to make some hot chocolate, want to head to bed?"

"Nah, I'll get something to eat." In all honesty he still wasn't ready to leave her alone yet, having been gone the whole of last week for work.

"Yeah, we went shopping yesterday remember?"

It was the most traumatic experience of his life. Why she felt the need to drag him to the slaughterhouse and force him to watch a pig get killed was beyond him. He'd be a vegetarian until the memory went away. On the plus side he'd finally have something in common with Mary – the only sister in Lydia's family he hadn't been able to either charm or form a friendly report with.

In the small kitchen of their apartment, she flicked the kettle on and turned to grab a mug in the top cabinet while he wandered to the pantry to find a bag of chips to munch on.

After finding a bag of Cheetos, George chose to sit on the countertop – the back of his heels hitting the cupboard.

Lydia came to stand in front of him and out of habit he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and kissed the back of her head.

"Do you remember when Hunter was born?"

"Yeah?"

"You were really good with him. He loved you. Would always go to you every time you showed up, wouldn't leave your side and then you'd have to carry the little darling because he fell asleep on your shoe and you felt bad about leaving him," she recalled fondly.

"Well now that 'little darling' is heavier than you," he snorted. "And he humps vertical objects."

She laughed. "He takes a little bit after you then when you were younger and I was mooning after you like a stupid school girl."

"You were a stupid school girl, and I was a hot older guy."

"No, you were an older guy that was going through a hippie phase, but had a car which made you infinitely more attractive then Bill Collins trying to entice me to ride on the handlebars of his bicycle."

The memory alone made George laugh as he kissed her forehead. "Good times."

"For you," she grumbled scornfully, "his bike tore my skirt as he rode past me."

"Exactly."

"Pervert, I was underage!"

"And you've still got the cute bum and that tattoo, not to mention having fun with you isn't considered statutory rape anymore – you get better with age."

"Gee thanks," she said with a sarcastic roll of her eyes as she thumped him lightly in the chest. He chuckled, grabbed her hand and brushed a kiss against her knuckles. "Still, Hunter really loves you."

"That mutt really loves his chew toys too, and licking his balls so I don't think that's much of a compliment," he said dryly. "If you're bringing him up because you miss him, we can visit your parents at the farm for a weekend."

"What, no work or party you want to go to?"

"I can get a weekend off, that's no big deal. The parties we do every other day, what's one weekend without one?"

"Is it me or you starting to sound strangely domesticated?"

He snorted. "Not a chance love."

The kettle clicked; the water ready.

As she stepped out of his embrace, he piqued, "By the way, I think our kids will be fun – I mean we are incredibly fun people."

"Of course," she agreed with a laugh. "But who knows, they might go the completely opposite direction and end up like Darcy – sedated and irritatingly formal, I bet he'll insist on wearing a suit everywhere like Darcy use to."

"Well then we'll just have to find out then, don't we?" He asked casually. "I don't know how our kid will turn out, but I know making one will be fun."

**Finis**

**A/n: **Just a little experiment, leave me a line below.


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